Deeper Into the Word (Book Review)

April 25, 2011 By 1 Comment

Deeper Into the Word by Keri Wyatt Kent takes us beyond the surface of our New Testament reading, past the obvious definitions of words that we think we are familiar with, and provides background and extensive explanations regarding their use.

Choosing 100 words from the New Testament, Kent created a very readable but informative book that could be used for Bible study, devotionals, or as a quick reference source.  Using personal anectodes and excerpts from commentaries keeps it from being a dry read, and questions smattered throughout the text cause the reader to consider more seriously the information being presented, rather than just quickly passing over it.

This book is a valuable resource in the library of any follower of Jesus who is seeking a deeper understand of key words and ideas in the Bible but can’t read Greek and doesn’t have the time or motivation to delve into thick commentaries.  Beyond just helping readers get a better grasp of ideas lost in translation, Kent provides background to help bridge cultural and historical gaps that we in the West struggle with in attempting to understand the New Testament.
*This book was provided free of charge for review by Bethany House Publishers.  All opinions are mine.

 

Filed Under: Bible Study, Book Reviews Tagged With: ,

Ancient Paths: Finding Our Way Again (Book Review)

April 25, 2011 By 2 Comments

Two thousand years after Jesus walked on the earth, hundreds of denominations, and who knows how many religious practices later, followers of Jesus are still trying to figure out how to connect with God, to build spiritual disciplines in their lives, to walk in ways that will bring them as close as possible to the divine.

All of us take this journey carrying biases…denominations and belief systems that are most familiar to us are the lenses through which we see other Christians and their spiritual practices.    Our tendency is to seek new, fresh ways to experience Christianity, and we can view the past with disdain, seeing it as outdated and irrelevant.

In Finding Our Way Again, Brian McLaren invites us to revisit the past, the old ways of doing things, and to experience the disciplines that have kept Christians and followers of Yahweh grounded in their faith since the time of Abraham.

I was personally very excited when I read this book.  Within it’s pages I found intelligibly written ideas that have been mulling around in my head but were still too nebulous to grab a hold of.  Over and over I found myself saying “Yes!  That’s it!” to things I read……the emphasis of Jesus bringing a new kingdom-not a new religion, the importance of sharing across different traditions in the Christian faith,  how God simply moves to new people who are willing to learn when any sector of the Church is unwilling to learn and grow, etc.

Beyond arguing the importance of looking at the past, McLaren describes the nature of the apprenticeship of the ancient ways.  The seven main spiritual disciplines are practiced, not just for their own sake, but in the light of the ancient three fold path – (1) to face your sin head on, confront it, and admit it (2) to see everything in light of God, and (3) being “infected” with God.

Other spiritual discipline books have often left me feeling like I have to “do” a list of things in order to become more spiritually connected.  However, when I finished this book I felt more of a sense of freedom.  I felt excited and compelled to become an apprentice of the ancient practices, and the whole endeavor feels grace-filled.  In the past, disciplines felt guilt-ridden…for example, if I failed at a fast, I despaired.  Having seen them from McLaren’s perspective, I now feel that when I fail, it simply provides evidence that I need to press in more to God, be more dependent on him, and rest in his strength to bring me into deep connection with him.

I think this book does a wonderful job of inciting the evaluation of one’s walk with Jesus, and encouraging people to cross denominational and historical boundaries in order to discover the practices and disciplines that stand the test of time in building solid, dynamic God relationships.

Filed Under: Book Reviews Tagged With: ,

Infant Potty Training Update: Success!

April 25, 2011 By 1 Comment

I’ve been trying out this infant potty training idea for almost two weeks now. Like I have said before, at first I thought it was a really silly idea, but decided to try it out anyway.

In this short amount of time, I have become a believer in this method. I totally wished I had tried it with my other two boys. Whether the whole idea is less about infant training and more about parent training, and the babies are simply exhibiting a Pavlovian response to cues, I don’t know….but I really don’t care either. All I know is that it is working with relatively little effort, and it is so much more pleasant than dealing with stinky diapers.

So, how do I measure success? I’m not naive enough to believe that Landon is going to start coming to me on his own anytime soon telling me he needs to go potty, or that he will just stop having any accidents like a toddler will eventually do. I measure success by the fact that I’m changing significantly fewer diapers on a daily basis than before.

I think I can safely say that I am catching at least 50% of Landon’s pees and 75% of his poops on average. Most of this has been done using the Baby Bjorn Little Potty. Initially, Landon was uncomfortable sitting on it, but for a few days I fed him bottles while sitting on it, and now he has no problem with it. He likes it alot better than me holding him up over the sink or toilet.

I was really amused by the whole thing at church tonight. Midway through the Easter service I got the feeling that Landon needed to go potty, by the way he was squirming and starting to pass gas a bit. I slipped out and took him to the bathroom, undiapered him, and held him over the potty where he promptly pooped and peed for me. We were out of the service for a total of 5 minutes. It was awesome! A diaper change for that amount of poop would have taken longer and been much stinkier. I think Landon was pretty proud of himself, too…he just beamed at me!

End conclusion: I will be continuing this….each day gets better and better. Initially I had a hard time keeping him dry in the morning, but either through reading body signals better or intuition, I’m catching more of them. And the best part of all of this is, if during part of a day I’m distracted or out running errands and can’t stay on top of the training, it’s no big deal…I just cloth or disposable diaper him and get back to taking him potty when I’m able and he remembers what he’s supposed to do.

Seeking to fully live, (and change fewer diapers),

Filed Under: Parenting Tagged With: ,

Infant Potty Training…..What a Concept!

April 18, 2011 By 2 Comments

I’ve been attempting to cloth diaper with my third son, and it’s been partially successful.  However, even when using a variety of different types of cloth diapers, I’m still experiencing leaks and was forced to use disposables at night from the very beginning.

The other day I decided to get on some cloth diaper sites and do some troubleshooting to figure out what I could change to avoid leaks.  A woman in one post mentioned that she was cloth diapering part time while EC’ing her baby.  EC stands for elimination communication and is fancy jargon for infant potty training.

I had heard about infant potty training before, but never took it seriously.  It seemed like alot of work and I was leery that it would actually work.  However, after viewing this particular post, I decided to read up on it.  There are several helpful sites, listed at the end of this post, and the books on infant potty training from Amazon get really good reviews.

Just for grins, I decided to try the tips mentioned in some of the websites with Landon, who is 15 weeks old, and the first day I was amazed.  I held him over a sink when I thought he might need to go potty, and I caught 4 pees and 2 poops!  I was seriously surprised.  The next day, I caught pees consistently enough that he was in a cloth diaper without a cover for 7 hours straight!   Holy cow!

I ordered a book from Amazon that got great reviews, as well as a Baby Bjorn potty that was recommended for infants.  The more I read about infant potty training, the more excited I got.  I have a toddler that I have been trying to start potty training, and let’s just say it’s going dismally.  He likes to sit on the potty, but I don’t think he has a clue what he’s supposed to do, even after I’ve let him run around in cotton training pants and even butt naked to try and catch pees.

So, after a week and a half of infant potty training, here are my thoughts on why it’s worth looking at:

1.  Bonding with your baby is enhanced.  Doing this potty training definitely makes me focus on Landon, becoming more in tune with his body and signals that occur before he needs to go potty.  Every time we catch a pee or poop and I praise him he just grins from ear to ear!

2.  When we do nothing but put babies in diapers until toddler age potty training, we are teaching them to ignore their disdain of soiling themselves and training them to only know how to go potty in diapers.  Infant potty training helps them keep an awareness of their body functions, which will make potty training down the road much easier, avoiding the obstacles I’m currently having with my 2 year old.

3. Fewer diapers, disposable or cloth, are needed…need I say more?

4.  Risk of diaper rash is reduced, because as more poops are caught, there is less time that the baby’s skin is coming into contact with a soiled diaper.

I’ll talk more about this the further into it I get, but as of now I’m hooked.  Even catching a few pees or poops a day is worth it, and if I can clue into Landon enough that we catch 95% of his poops and I don’t have to deal with a poopy diaper, I would be over the moon.

Anyway, for those with infants, infant potty training is at least worth checking out.

Infant Potty Training
More Infant Potty Training
Diaper Free Baby

Filed Under: Parenting